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You are here: Home / Blog / What Not to Do In Sales

What Not to Do In Sales

May 27, 2019 By maurasf

what not to do in sales
Here’s what’s not to do if you’re in sales.

You might have seen some magazines for both men and women where editors select fashions and put some in a category of do and others in a category of don’t.  When you want to be fashion forward you have to be sure that you stay far away from any styles that appear in the don’t column.  What about salespeople?  There may not be a fashion magazine to show you which behaviors to avoid.  Here are a few areas you can start to think about even if there are no photos.   

Trickery. I just got off the phone with Jim. The call started with a warm greeting of “Hey Maura. It’s Jim. Great to talk with you.” His friendliness seemed sincere. I replied, “Hi, Jim” wondering the whole time who this Jim was. I quickly learned.  He was an inside salesman. Once I realized that I didn’t know him, I felt duped. Why? He acted as if he knew me when he didn’t.  I felt like he tricked me. That is no way to make a customer feel. Of course I didn’t buy and I didn’t even let him get too many words out after that. 

If you have to trick customers into listening to you, I can promise you that your sales efforts will be unsuccessful. Don’t pretend to know people when you don’t.  Instead why not actually do some work and create a better introduction that people who don’t know you might pay attention to and listen to?     

One strategy when calling is to actually be persuasive. People respond with their emotions so tap into them. They also want to be part of certain groups. If he had said, “I work with successful business owners like you…” at the beginning of his introduction then of course I would have listened. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a group of successful business owners?  That would have made me feel good. I might have even bought if Jim said that.

Deceit. You probably know that referrals to prospects are a much easier way to sell.   People usually trust the people who refer others to them so you walk in with more trust established. Just imagine a salesman who uses this to get appointments by saying, “John, I was referred to you by Tom” and then leaves a phone number to return the call. Now what would you say if there were no Tom?  

I actually heard a salesman say this is what he does. This is called lying. You are lying if you make any claim that you know you can’t deliver. “I might be able to do this” is very different than “I can do this.”  Say what you mean to customers. There is no place in successful sales for lying. To this day I pity this salesman’s customers. 

Stupidity  I once made a sales call with an inexperienced salesman who was anxious to close the deal. His prospect asked many questions to better understand the project.  After fifteen minutes of getting questions the salesman responded to another question with, “You don’t need to know that.” The stunned customer looked at him and the sales call was over. If you want a quick way to end the sale then make your customers feel stupid.  What you’ll get is no respect—and no sale.

Anyone can claim to be a salesman. There are far fewer who can claim to be successful. The ones who are successful are honest, hard working, and deliver much more than they charge for their products sand services.   They don’t need photos to show them what to do.  

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Filed Under: Blog, Selling Tagged With: what not to do

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*What was your last “mistake?” Did you make it before? There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes in sales provided you are making different mistakes. (You are learning from them!)

About the principal

Would you take auto mechanics classes when you buy a car? Maura did because she wanted to be able to work on her car. She takes that same approach to selling. She can show you how to get below the surface of selling to learn why and how different strategies work. She will show you which skills to implement that will shorten your sales cycle and increase your sales. She was Mobil Oil's first female Lubrication Engineer in the United States and one of Chevron's top 5 salespeople in the country. She knows what works for sales.

"I would recommend your work to other sales organizations who want to get better results from improved selling strategies."
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Selling is the easiest job in the world. Just ask anyone who is not in sales. Read Maura’s ideas on “more brain…less mouth” selling to make your selling easier and more successful.

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